In certain corners of the moral enhancement debate, it has been suggested we ought
to consider the prospect of supplementing conventional methods of enhancing sexual
fidelity (e.g. relationship counselling, moral education, self-betterment, etc.) with
biochemical fidelity enhancement methods. In surveying this argument, I begin
from the conviction that generally-speaking moral enhancement ought to expectably
attenuate (or at least not exacerbate) vulnerability. Assuming conventional methods
of enhancing sexual fidelity are at least partially effective in this respect – e.g., that
relationship counselling sometimes successfully attenuates the particular vulnerability
victims of infidelity feel – then presumably the case for supplementing conventional
methods with biochemical methods turns, in part, on the claim that doing so will
better promote attenuation of victim vulnerability.
In this paper I argue that on a sufficiently sophisticated conception of what this
vulnerability consists in, biochemical methods of enhancing fidelity will not expectably
attenuate victims’ vulnerability. Moreover, when combined with conventional
methods, biochemical methods will predictably tend to undermine whatever attenuation
conventional methods expectably promote in that respect. Thus, I conclude
that couples committed to saving their relationship following an instance of sexual
infidelity have reason to prefer conventional methods of enhancing sexual fidelity
sans biochemical methods to conventional methods plus biochemical methods.